The bullish comments about India came when Apple reported its first drop in quaterly revenue growth in 13 years, which fell by 13% due to drop in global iPhone sales.Writankar Mukherjee | ET Bureau | April 27, 2016, 08:50 IST

KOLKATA: Apple has bucked the trend in iPhone sales in India in the January-March quarter, with sales growing by 56% and the company saying it will place more emphasis in the market, the management said during the second quarter conference call with analysts on Wednesday early morning.

The bullish comments about India came when Apple reported its first drop in quaterly revenue growth in 13 years, which fell by 13% due to drop in global iPhone sales.

During the call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said:" If you take a look at India, we grew by 56%, and we're placing increasing emphasis in these (emerging) areas, where it's clear there will be disproportionate growth versus the more developed areas."

Cook further said Apple will accelerate its expansion in India with fourth generation mobile internet services or LTE roll out having begun from this year. This, he said, will make mobile networks better and "unleash the power and capability of the iPhone in a way that an older network, a 2.5G or even some 3G networks, would not do."

Apple has also increased pace of its retail distribution expansion in India and will take the iPhone to the smallest of shops. Talking about this, Cook said: "We've been working in India now for a couple of years or more, but we've been working with great energy over the last 18 months or so, and I'm encouraged by the results that we're beginning to see there, and believe there's a lot, lot more there."

The Apple CEO said the company is betting on India for the long term and the country is now at a place where China was about seven to ten years ago.

Separately, RCom initiated contempt proceedings in the apex court against the Department of Telecommunications, blaming it for delaying a spectrum sale that would have enabled dues to be paid to Ericsson and lenders.